Existing mechanical devices used to cut and portion feed of extruded products include at least two categories of devices. There are devices where the portioning/cutting knife is fixed. When the product is portioned, a feed of material stops and the knife is actuated, cutting through a die to ensure a clean cut/separation of the product to provide a portion. Because the flow of the product is momentarily stopped, production is necessarily limited. For example, devices used to cut, portion and process ground meat typically operate at a maximum speed of about 120 pieces per minute. Rapid starting and stopping in these intermittently operating systems can result in excessive wear and high maintenance. The starts and stops can also lead to fluctuations in the weight and/or shape of the cut product, as systems that use a product pump (i.e., meat pump) have pressure build up during a stop period and release when the belt is restarted. The knives of such systems are typically actuated by pneumatic cylinders, servo drives, or hydraulics, making the system complicated and expensive.
There are also devices where the knife moves with the product and cuts on the fly, enabling the product flow to run uninterrupted. In such cases, the blade of the knife travels down to the transporting belt. This process can result in the product portion not being cut and separated cleanly.